After a lengthier than expected absence, the rants are now back. I guess I’ve built up quite a stockpile of things to vent my spleen about in all this time!
I’d like to kick-off with something that we’ve all been afflicted by at some point in our lives…the badly dubbed advert. I’ll move on to some examples further on, but I think what is the question here is just a big fat, WHY? Surely if you, as a company can afford to advertise on TV, you have a decent bank balance and can afford an extra few grand to pay local actors and make your advert. However crappy and cheap looking it may well be.
And just as surely, if you don’t want to pay out for local actors, then avoid having conversations in your ads. Just avoid the issue and spare us all these awfully dubbed scenes of domestic bliss and harmony – even if in some cases they’re so horrifically awful they’re funny. Don’t get me wrong…ads don’t all have to be amazing; I understand you don’t need a field of burning sugar cane to sell window cleaner. But they should at least treat the audience and lest we forget, customers with a bit of respect and a modicum of sense.
It’s not that I’m even in the market for a lot of these products – I don’t like chocolate, don’t have grey hair that I want to cover-up, don’t like cold rice pudding served in a tiny plastic pot, don’t have spots, can wipe my own bottom without the help of a cartoon frog and don’t have a problem with bad smells in my home. But what I am in the market for is an advertiser who perhaps has a vague cultural interest in the markets they’re advertising in; who can actually be arsed to pay a bit more to have a better end product than the competition.
Over the years there have been quite a few no doubt, but here’s my selection, past and present. Please comment and add some more. Plus a clip of a particularly bad example from the people at Glade and Mr Muscle. Enjoy.
(You’ll notice there’s a common theme across the adverts / products – they are all what is known as FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) and are all made by huge corporations: Ferrero, P&G, SCJohnson etc. Quite clearly they don’t give that much of a sh*t, despite the billions they make each year).
Ferrero Rocher (a classic in the 70s/80s and still a classic today), Lindt chocolate adverts. Oust and Febreeze. Muller Rice. Just for Men. Kinder Surprise. Clearasil. Kandoo kiddies bottom wipes.
